The Crossed Keys Chronicle

Booker Prize 2026 Longlist part two

Booker Prizes

As I write this, we are now only hours away from the release of the Booker Prize shortlist for 2026. I gave it my best shot to read all thirteen of the longlist entries before the reveal and I feel like I've done all I can at this point. I have at least started twelve out of the thirteen, which is the maximum number currently available for sale in the US right now — The Shadow of the Object by Chloe Aridjis doesn't come out until sometime in October. I am only a few pages into Switzy by Emma Cline, but I don't expect I'll finish it by the Tuesday deadline.

Let's do a quick whirlwind tour of the remaining books that I did complete in time.

The Renovation

The Renovation by Kenan Orhan is the first one up. We follow a Turkish émigré named Dilara, her husband, and her aging, Alzheimer's-suffering father, who are now all living in Italy. Dilara has hired contractors to renovate her home's second bathroom to help it be more suitable for her father, only to find that instead of a bathroom, they have connected her home to a prison cell back in her native Turkey. The story alternates between her acceptance of this strange fact and flashbacks to the family's time in Turkey as her father came under harsher and harsher scrutiny by the regime.

I totally get the concept of magical realism and I've enjoyed some books featuring it as their central premise, but I just didn't love that part of this book. The fact that it was a literal portal between Italy and Turkey and that she eventually started even interacting with the other prisoners there just didn't work for me. The other parts of the book, though — related to the feelings of abandonment on having to leave the country of one's birth, combined with losing her most direct link to her past with her continually declining father — were very affecting and definitely the high parts of the book. Given the fact this has made it on the National Book Award fiction longlist, I have a sneaking suspicion it will move on to the Booker Prize shortlist as well.

All Them Dogs

The next entry that I finished was All Them Dogs by Djamel White. This tells the story of a young Irish gangster named Tony Ward, who has returned home some five years after murdering a rival gang member and having to flee to London. Tony's first order of business after returning home is to reestablish himself in the local gang structure by proving his worth to a crime boss named Flute. What follows could have been a minor story arc on a season of the Sopranos, though swapping Italian accents for Irish ones and a significantly higher dose of homoeroticism. As is often the case with mob/gangster stories, I didn't find Tony or really any of the main characters to be sympathetic and I certainly wasn't rooting for him in any way. I was decidedly neutral about the book until the last few pages, which did tip me slightly over into the "like" camp. If you are looking for an Irish-themed gangster book, it's probably not a bad shout. I'd be very surprised if this one made it onto the shortlist, though.

John of John

The final completion on my list is John of John by Douglas Stuart. This book follows John-Calum Macleod, a young man who, after completing art school but with no prospects after graduation, returns home to the Isle of Harris in the Outer Hebrides of Scotland, where he lives with his father, the devout Presbyterian lay preacher John, and his maternal grandmother Ella. John and Cal have a strained relationship, with John often verbally and even physically attacking Cal out of anger over how Cal has long hair and doesn't dress respectfully enough for the preacher. John is a particularly unlikable character. It's revealed early on that despite being so outwardly pious and "Christian," John has had a near-lifelong same-sex relationship with a nearby neighbor named Innes. This eventually led to the dissolution of his marriage when she found out, leaving Cal to live with John and Ella growing up. Cal himself is gay, but due to his fears of what his father would say or do to him, he of course can't ever tell John that. I rather enjoyed this novel — unlike a lot of other prestige literary fiction, there was a through line of a plot — and I thought the ending was also properly well earned. I think, based on a lot of the criticism and reviews I've read, that this one will definitely be on the shortlist, and until recently might have been the odds-on favorite to win the actual prize this year.

Now on to my DNFs.

The Vivisectors

The first of which was The Vivisectors by Missouri Williams. This was billed as an odd romance story set in a university town, which has an unusual arrangement where a group of specialized gardeners help control the natural world from overrunning the city. I made it about 30% of the way through this book, but I just wasn't connecting with it. From some of the blurbs and reviews I had skimmed, I thought maybe there would be a more spooky or supernatural angle to the overgrowth and ruin taking over the city, but at least to the point where I stopped reading, none of that was apparent to me. What I actually got was long discussions of a particularly politically active student who had recently been involved with some incidents at the university. Maybe one day, if I am really looking for something to read, I'll come back and try and finish this, but only time will tell. Despite my feelings on it, I think there is a lot of consensus that this book will make it on the shortlist.

The Disappearers

The final DNF was my most disappointing, The Disappearers by Marlon James. The buzz around this book is undeniable, with the NYTimes review even going so far as saying it's possible that it's the book of the century, which seems like insane hyperbole, and yet basically every other TikTok, BookTok, or YouTube video will say something very similar. So I am very sad that I wasn't compelled to finish it. James is well known as an incredible writer, but I found it very difficult to get through the Jamaican patois dialog and the visceral and extensive depictions of violence. I know that this component is one of the main factors in everyone saying this book is a classic and has such resonance, but it was all too much for me to continue on through the nearly 600 pages of total length. This book is the biggest lock for the shortlist I can think of, and I would also be gobsmacked if it doesn't win the actual prize as well.

And so the Booker Prize longlist roundup comes to an end. I will endeavor to finish the last two at some point in the future, and if there are any out-of-left-field omissions or selections for the shortlist, I'll be sure to comment on that in a future post. Has anyone else been reading along with the list? Does anyone have a favorite that isn't The Disappearers? (If it were up to me, my pick would be May We Feed the King.) But let me know who you think will take the grand prize.

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